Rocket-launch newcomer
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. today accomplished a critical engine
firing at California's
Vandenberg Air Force Base, a long-awaited event that puts the company much
closer to its inaugural blastoff later this summer.

The Falcon 1 rocket roared
its first stage engine during the dramatic five-second firing to demonstrate
countdown procedures and ring out equipment bugs at the rebuilt Space Launch
Complex-3 West pad.

After two false starts in
recent weeks, the 70-foot-tall vehicle rumbled to life as today's countdown hit
the planned T-minus zero second mark at 9 a.m. local time (12 p.m. EDT; 1600
GMT).

The low-cost,
privately-developed Falcon 1 rocket is the creation of Elon
Musk, the South African spending his own cash to bring the new launcher from
the drawing board to reality. Musk was co-founder of PayPal,
the online payment system, and earlier the Zip2 software company.

"Today we completed
the largest milestone remaining before launch," Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, said in a statement.

"In a few months, we
will receive Air Force clearance to fly and Falcon 1 will make its maiden
voyage. With the lowest cost per flight in the world for a production rocket
and superlative design reliability, it has the potential to be the world leader
in launches per year."

Using a tiny launch team
compared to the standing armies typically involved with the rocket countdowns,
a seven-person control team, a five-person pad crew and three extra technicians
performed today's engine firing. The nerve center overseeing the operation was SpaceX's mobile command trailer parked on Vandenberg's
South Base -- about five miles from the pad -- that tapped into the
installation's fiber lines and Range communications loops.

The
multi-hour countdown featured the loading of fuels into the rocket's first
stage, only the third time that's happened at the new Falcon pad. The SpaceX-developed main engine, dubbed Merlin, burns
super-cold liquid oxygen and a highly-refined kerosene
to generate over 71,000 pounds of thrust.

"A significant amount
of our objectives are centered around learning how to operate on a Range,
specifically Vandenberg Air Force Base. We have fired the engine many, many
times at our propulsion test facility in Texas.
So just firing the engine is not essentially a primary objective. However,
firing that engine at Vandenberg with a brand new system of (ground support
equipment) is really important," SpaceX launch
director Tim Buzza explained in an interview before
the test.

As clocks entered the final
moments, the engine ignition sequence was triggered. Two earlier attempts over
the past couple of weeks to perform this test were halted in the last seconds
-- first by a faulty engine ignitor pressure sensor,
and then by a mis-configured launch
pad helium valve that was shut when it should have been open.

But all appeared to go
according to plan today. Merlin started igniting around T-minus 2.3 seconds as
the main propellant line was opened, two internal ignitors
fired off and helium spun-up the engine's turbopump.

Merlin roared to full
throttle as the countdown passed the T-0 point when the rocket would be
unleashed on launch day. Falcon would not fly today, however. After running at
top power for about three seconds and allowing computers to verify internal
chamber pressure, thrust levels and the status of systems, the engine was
commanded to shut down.

The fiery event was called
a success, proving that the SpaceX team and its
hardware are ready for primetime.

Crews tilted the rocket
into a horizontal position using its erector trailer this afternoon, removing
the vehicle from the pad mount. Remarkably, the vehicle was being driven back
to SpaceX's manufacturing center near Los Angeles tonight -- a
half-day after firing its engine.

SpaceX has minimal facilities at the
launch site, preferring to do virtually all of its work off base.

Once back in the factory,
technicians will remove the Merlin engine for shipment to Texas to undergo final checks. Also, the two
stages that make up the rocket will be separated apart. The second stage's
engine has not been installed yet -- it is still undergoing acceptance testing
in Texas, Buzza said.

A specific launch date for
the debut mission is uncertain. The Air Force doesn't want the liftoff to occur
until after a Titan 4 rocket flies from nearby Space Launch Complex-4 East at
Vandenberg to deliver a classified spy satellite into orbit. Falcon's
trajectory would take it over the Titan facilities, something the military
wants to avoid until after the rocket and its top-secret payload have departed.

Buzza said Falcon could be ready for
launch within a week of the Titan's liftoff, which is expected no sooner than
mid-July.

SpaceX's customer for the first Falcon
flight is the U.S. Department of Defense. The small TacSat-1 experimental
communications satellite, built by the Naval Research Laboratory, will be
carried into space.